Simply Eliot

By Joseph Maddrey

“The next time I teach Eliot to undergrads I will assign this swift, witty, enjoyable invitation to T. S. Eliot’s work and thought. Maddrey knows everything about Eliot, but he grinds no axe which frees professors and students to grind their own. Scrupulously footnoted for professional use, not short but concise, it is stuffed with unfamiliar and apt quotations. Maddrey quotes a 1949 interview about The Cocktail Party, in which Eliot said, ‘If there is nothing more in the play than what I was aware of meaning, then it must be a pretty thin piece of work.’ There’s the New Criticism in 25 words, 21 of them monosyllables. Eliot asks us to quit asking what he thought and to do some thinking ourselves. This book will help.”
—George J. Leonard, author of Into the Light of Things and The End of Innocence. Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities, San Francisco State University

Though he was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended Harvard University, at the age of 26, Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965) emigrated to England, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. Influenced equally by his formative years in the New World and his experiences in London during and after World War I, Eliot strove to reconcile a variety of conflicting ideas while trapped in an unhappy marriage—a struggle that gave rise to some of the greatest poems of the 20th century. 

In Simply Eliot, Joseph Maddrey plumbs the emotional and intellectual life of the man whom critic Edmund Wilson called "one of our only authentic poets.” Taking The Waste Land (written in the aftermath of World War I) and Four Quartets (published 1936–1942) as reference points, Maddrey chronicles Eliot's attempts to create a coherent worldview, and explores how his religious conversion in 1927 led to a spiritual rebirth that allowed him to produce his ultimate poetic statement. 

Making use of previously unavailable materials, including over 5,000 personal letters, Maddrey offers an intimate and incisive portrait of Eliot, and illustrates his continued relevance as both a Romantic and Classical poet, as well as a religious and spiritual thinker.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simply Charly
• Release date: Sep 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781943657742

Joseph Maddrey

Joseph Maddrey is the author of ten books, including Nightmares in Red, White and Blue; Not Bad for a Human; and the graphic novel To Hell You Ride. He has also researched, written and produced over 100 hours of documentary television, focusing on true crime and the paranormal. Joe is a member of the International Horror Writers Association. He lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife and daughter.

Book preview

Simply Eliot

Joseph Maddrey

Simply Charly

New York

Copyright © 2018 by Joseph Maddrey

Cover Illustration by José Ramos

Cover Design by Scarlett Rugers

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below.

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ISBN: 978-1-943657-74-2

Brought to you by http://simplycharly.com

Extracts taken from The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume 1, The Complete Poems and Plays, The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical Edition, The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture, On Poetry and Poets, and To Criticize the Critic, Copyright T. S. Eliot / Set Copyrights Limited and Reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.

Extracts taken from Ash Wednesday, East Coker and Little Gidding, Copyright T. S. Eliot / Set Copyrights Ltd., first appeared in The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume 1. Reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.

Excerpts from Ash Wednesday, East Coker and Little Gidding, from Collected Poems 1909-1962 by T. S. Eliot. Copyright 1936 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Copyright renewed 1964 by Thomas Stearns Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Extracts taken from Murder in the Cathedral, The Cocktail Party, The Confidential Clerk, and The Elder Statesman, Copyright T. S. Eliot / Set Copyrights Ltd. and Reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.

Excerpts from Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party, from The Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950 by T. S. Eliot. Copyright 1950 by T. S. Eliot, renewed 1978 by Esme Valerie Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from Christianity and Culture by T. S. Eliot. Copyright 1939, 1948 by T. S. Eliot, renewed 1967, 1976 by Esme Valerie Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

For Jewel Spears Brooker, who encouraged me to write this book.

Contents

Dedication

Praise for Simply Eliot

Other Great Lives

Series Editor's Foreword

Preface

1. Prufrock and Other Observations

2. The Waste Land

3. Ash-Wednesday

4. Four Quartets

5. The Elder Statesman

6. Eliot's Legacy

Endnotes

Sources

Suggested Reading

About the Author

A Word from the Publisher

Praise for Simply Eliot

"The next time I teach Eliot to undergrads I will assign this swift, witty, enjoyable invitation to T. S. Eliot’s work and thought. Maddrey knows everything about Eliot, but he grinds no axe which frees professors and students to grind their own. Scrupulously footnoted for professional use, not short but concise, it is stuffed with unfamiliar and apt quotations. Maddrey quotes a 1949 interview about The Cocktail Party, in which Eliot said, ‘If there is nothing more in the play than what I was aware of meaning, then it must be a pretty thin piece of work.’ There’s the New Criticism in 25 words, 21 of them monosyllables. Eliot asks us to quit asking what he thought and to do some thinking ourselves. This book will help."

—George J. Leonard, author of Into the Light of Things and The End of Innocence. Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities, San Francisco State University

Joseph Maddrey provides an illuminating spiritual biography of T. S. Eliot that treats his writings as markers of Eliot’s lifelong spiritual drama and development while avoiding reducing his poetry to biography because he treats the texts as products of creation that all can contemplate. Maddrey admiringly captures the creativity of both Eliot’s character and his poetry. The two are elusive not only because Eliot’s poetry employs a vast and encyclopedic storehouse of poetic images (‘3,000 years of word made flesh’), but also because his poetry strives to move ‘beyond poetry,’ at the apophatic ‘ever-present frontier of consciousness—where words fail, though meanings persist.’ Maddrey introduces Eliot to a new generation of readers, and guides wanderers anew at the ‘point of intersection with the timeless / With time.’

—John von Heyking, Professor of Political Science at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

"T. S. Eliot considered that ‘a worthwhile biography should show the development of an artist and give readers a proper sense of how each work of art fits within the whole.’ In Simply Eliot Joseph Maddrey has fulfilled the directive, brilliantly compressing a gargantuan amount of previous Eliot studies and providing a fresh dynamic manual for understanding this storied literary icon."

—Quinton Hallett, Poet, and Author of Mrs. Schrödinger’s Breast

"Simply Eliot is an accessible, artfully-written book that positions a well-known literary figure in a seemingly new landscape. One of the book’s greatest strengths is its extensive engagement with archival sources. Maddrey draws on those sources to give weight and depth to his narrative, which weaves interpretations—close-readings, even—of Eliot’s poetry into the broad strokes of his biography and intellectual genealogy. The approach is neither reductive nor esoteric, and Maddrey’s way with language draws the reader—one suddenly realizes one is reading and enjoying literary criticism. For this reason, the book will appeal not just to an audience of academics or students, but to intelligent, cultured people of all kinds."

—Dr. Siân White, Associate Professor of English, James Madison University

"Joseph Maddrey’s Simply Eliot is an elegant addition to the Great Lives series, providing an authoritative introduction to T. S. Eliot’s work and influences. Accessible and yet well researched, Maddrey’s biography gives readers a deeper understanding and appreciation for Eliot’s life and his development as an artist by tracing the personal and critical influences of the individual poems and plays written throughout the writer’s long career. Maddrey focusses on the individual works themselves to demonstrate how each fits into the whole and represents Eliot’s journey as a spiritual seeker and artist. Maddrey’s book will make a great introduction to all who are interested in Eliot as well as to everyone and anyone who wants to learn more. Simply Eliot is simply what all biographies should be."

—Carol Scarvalone Kushner, Professor of English & Humanities at Dutchess Community College

Joseph Maddrey’s brief vita of Eliot is a tale of a search for identities both human and divine. Maddrey is right to say that ‘Eliot’s total commitment to the church transformed his poetry.’ Was that church, though, the Church of England, with its distinctive patrimony of the King James Bible, and Lancelot Andrewes, and George Herbert, and their like, or the Anglican faith as a world religion which Eliot experienced first in the USA during his flight from Unitarianism? Maddrey’s analysis of Eliot as an American High-Church Anglican living in Britain insightfully explores the relationship between religious and cultural identities, and helpfully places Eliot, nationally and religiously respectively, as ‘stranger and pilgrim.’

—The Reverend Graeme Napier MA MPhil (Oxon), Rector, St. John’s in the Village, Greenwich Village, New York

This relatively brief account of the life of T. S. Eliot admirably enlarges one’s appreciation of his poetry and other writings by situating them within their historical, cultural, and religious backgrounds. Not of least value is the final section entitled ‘Suggested Reading’, which is actually a summary of the responses of critical scholarship to Eliot’s work rather a mere list of books.

—The Revd Dr. Paul Bradshaw, Professor Emeritus of Liturgical Studies, University of Notre Dame

"I had to stop my daily life, almost, to read Simply Eliot; for me, it is compelling, refreshing, and genuinely exciting to read a biography that speaks to Virginia Woolf’s ‘common reader.’ Cats saved Eliot for millions of people, but it did not make people want to read Eliot’s challenging poetry. I think Maddrey’s book will."

—Charles W. Spurgeon, Professor Emeritus at Marymount University and author of The Poetry of Westminster Abbey and J. Henry Shorthouse, The Author of John Inglesant (with Reference to T. S. Eliot and C. G. Jung)

Other Great Lives

Simply Austen by Joan Klingel Ray

Simply Beckett by Katherine Weiss

Simply Beethoven by Leon Plantinga

Simply Chaplin by David Sterritt

Simply Chekhov by Carol Apollonio

Simply Chomsky by Raphael Salkie

Simply Chopin by William Smialek

Simply Darwin by Michael Ruse

Simply Descartes by Kurt Smith

Simply Dickens by Paul Schlicke

Simply Edison by Paul Israel

Simply Einstein by Jimena Canales

Simply Eliot by Joseph Maddrey

Simply Euler by Robert E. Bradley

Simply Faulkner by Philip Weinstein

Simply Fitzgerald by Kim Moreland

Simply Freud by Stephen Frosh

Simply Gödel by Richard Tieszen

Simply Hegel by Robert Wicks

Simply Hitchcock by David Sterritt

Simply Joyce by Margot Norris

Simply Machiavelli by Robert Fredona

Simply Napoleon by J. David Markham & Matthew Zarzeczny

Simply Proust by Jack L. Jordan

Simply Riemann by Jeremy Gray

Simply Tolstoy by Donna Tussing Orwin

Simply Stravinsky by Pieter van den Toorn

Simply Turing by Michael Olinick

Simply Wagner by Thomas S. Grey

Simply Wittgenstein by James C. Klagge

Series Editor's Foreword

Simply Charly’s Great Lives series offers brief but authoritative introductions to the world’s most influential people—scientists, artists, writers, economists, and other historical figures whose contributions have had a meaningful and enduring impact on our society.

Each book provides an illuminating look at the works, ideas, personal lives, and the legacies these individuals left behind, also shedding light on the thought processes, specific events, and experiences that led these remarkable people to their groundbreaking discoveries or other achievements. Additionally, every volume explores various challenges they had to face and overcome to make history in their respective fields, as well as the little-known character traits, quirks, strengths, and frailties, myths and controversies that sometimes surrounded these personalities.

Our authors are prominent scholars and other top experts who have dedicated their careers to exploring each facet of their subjects’ work and personal lives.

Unlike many other works that are merely descriptions of the major milestones in a person’s life, the Great Lives series goes above and beyond the standard format and content. It brings substance, depth, and clarity to the sometimes-complex lives and works of history’s most powerful and influential people.

We hope that by exploring this series, readers will not only gain new knowledge and understanding of what drove these geniuses, but also find inspiration for their own lives. Isn’t this what a great book is supposed to do?

Charles Carlini, Simply Charly

New York City

Preface

There is nothing simple about T. S. Eliot. At least, that’s the simple conclusion to be drawn from the existence of thousands of books, essays, and dissertations about the Nobel Prize-winning poet. Collectively, this body of critical work has created a popular conception of Eliot as an impossibly complex writer and a man of many contradictory masks. Critics have presented him as an avant-garde poet and conservative critic, a modernist and a traditionalist, a Romantic and a Classicist, a philosopher and a moralist, an American and a European, a proto-fascist and a pseudo-mystic, a bigot and a sage. Each of these masks can be peeled away, but then what are we left with? Who was T. S. Eliot and what did he really stand for?

First and foremost, he is the author of several very influential poems, including The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The